The Wet Rug Part 1
CHAPTER 1
Lucy was the first to notice the puddle that had formed under the rug section.
She worked at a home improvement store, and had been walking down the aisle, prepping to open the store that morning when she heard the splash, certainly an uncommon noise at 5 in the morning, but still not exactly common at any other time, (though she had seen a few kids drop McDonalds cups in the store and things like that) but no, there was only a handful of others in the store and this puddle was… odd.
It was a foggy white color, like a combination of one part milk and 3 parts water, but it was much thicker than either of those-- not quite as thick as paint. Which is subsequently, what she thought it was for a moment, then tried to make the mental gymnastics of how a can of white-ish paint could have made it over here when the paint was 10 aisles away. No, whatever this was, it wasn’t paint, but then, what?
She called her manager over and they spent the better part of 10 minutes wondering if the air conditioner above the aisle might’ve been leaking some kind of fluid. Only when Lucy was doing her best to get a better view of the unit did she notice the true source. In front of them was a hanging section of rugs. They hung from a metal system that allowed each rug to be looked at and flipped through like a giant, room sized book. The particular rug that Lucy had just touched was damp. Not nearly enough to even remotely suggest that it was the source of the liquid, in fact, this only went to briefly confirm their theory about the air conditioning unit, but then why was that rug the only one that was wet?
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The rest of the day progressed as any other would have. Lucy and her manager, Tom, had another team member remove the wet rug while they finished officially opening the store. During the day they hung the rug outside the backdoor in the Arizona heat to clear whatever was in it. They also started the process of getting someone out to try and fix the assumed faulty air conditioner. Other than a few crappy customers, everything was fine until Lucy’s coworker came in for the night shift.
Lucy hated this guy. He was a self described conspiracy theorist with a small YouTube following of a couple hundred people. Lucy didn’t care as much about this though. What really bothered her was how vocal and aggressive he got about his beliefs. He was the kind of guy who walked around with business cards about how vaccines are turning the population gay and yelled at you for trying to disagree with him, no matter how civilly you did it. In a word, Jonathan was a dick.
Jonathan came in and went to the back to take a quick cigarette before starting his shift. He had just lit his cigarette when he leaned against the metal railing of the staircase that the rug was laid over. He instantly drew his hand back, surprised to find the rug very damp. Puzzled, he quickly took a drag or two from his cigarette and headed inside to ask Tom what the deal was. Tom was surprised to hear the rug was still wet, they had put it outside before open, and it was only a few minutes before 5 PM now. How could it not have dried up? After all, it wasn’t a very thick rug. He gave Jonathan a brief explanation of the morning events and Jonathan’s interests were piqued. Not long ago, Jonathan had heard a new theory that “they” were using air conditioning as a means of spying on and controlling the American public. He then began trying to work this wet rug into his belief system. He had trouble doing this but decided that it warranted a video about it anyhow.
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A few hours drive away in a small FBI office, two agents were talking. One was tall-ish and husky, the other one was a bit shorter but just as husky. Their jobs were simple, they were in charge of monitoring local social media for anything of note. This could be as simple as actionable threats or any kind of post, video, or rant of note to the FBI. Put simply, it was a shitty job that they loathed actually performing. They were just in the middle of discussing the previous night's basketball game when a computer nearby gave off a notification chirp. The shorter one, in mid sentence, leaned his chair back to look at the monitor and saw that the notification was for a new video in the duo's favorite YouTube channel. Cutting himself off, the smaller man waved the taller over and they quickly began the video.
A little background: these men had found the channel just a few months earlier, soon after taking the position. At first, they hated listening to Jonathan belch out random theory after theory, but at some point it became more funny than anything else, and they marathoned through his videos. Only problem was their job required them to check out anything creditable.
The video was, of course, about the wet rug and featured a 5 and a half minute rant about the possibility of the government being able to control all air conditioners and thereby controlling the weather. Real wacky stuff, or at least so the agents thought, but they sobered up after realizing that they now had to drive the few hours to go investigate a damn rug.
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Doing their best not to cause a scene (which essentially meant to hide from Jonathan), the agents retrieved the rug in question, and were semi surprised to find that it was exactly as described: wet. They weren’t sure exactly what they had been expecting, but to find something that was exactly as Jonathan had described it, was… off- putting to say the least.
After confiscating the rug, which in this case means purchasing it with american tax dollars (maybe Jonathatn had a point after all…) they dropped it off at a small, government owned research facility nearby their offices.
Several weeks of testing later, and the lead scientist at the facility was stumped. He had run every test that this facility could manage on the rug and it was not only still wet, but he had discovered that the liquid was strange. It defied nearly any classification. It wasn’t water, or paint, or some kind of mold, it simply was an unknown liquid. Confused and disheartened, he tried the only thing left that he hadn’t done yet:, he electrified the rug.
The moment the current touched the damp fibers, the whole rug stiffened. Whatever the liquid was, it was an excellent conductor. Gold flames, starting from the center of the rug out, moved across it as though it was floor, completely ignoring gravity and standing directly perpendicular to the rug. The scientist immediately removed the current from the rug and the flames faded away, losing their goldish hue and gravity defying traits. At the dead center of the rug, a small hole had been burned but the liquid stayed solid there, as though the center was not missing.
“Shit.”
After calming down for a minute, it was clear to Zabel that whatever had happened was extraordinary and that he would need better equipment to figure damn near anything about the oddity in front of him. He knew of a facility not too far away. He had spent some time there working under the head researcher many years back. With any luck they would let him use some of their equipment. The FBI might not be a big fan of this though;, were this to be a major discovery, then bringing it to a civilian led facility might draw the ire from someone senior to him, but, hey, he was the only one who knew this thing was more than just a rug anyhow.
